EP195: Julie Watson – How I Built My Thriving Virtual Bookkeeping Business

Michael Palmer: So when we did put Practice Protect in, we were able to downgrade our cybersecurity because it is so much safer than lots of different passwords. And then of course transition our employees to work from home just in a second. It was great. You're listening to The Successful Bookkeeper with your host, Michael Palmer. Listen each week as inspiring guests share their secrets of success to help you increase your confidence, work smarter, and build a business you love. This episode of The Successful Bookkeeper is brought to you by purebookkeeping.com, the proven system to grow your bookkeeping business. Welcome back. Welcome back to the Successful Bookkeeper Podcast. I am your host, Michael Palmer, and today's show is going to be a great one. Our guest is the director of Bookkeeping Relief Business Services based in Australia, and she's also a Pure Bookkeeping licensee, also a winner of several awards in the industry in Australia. Julie Watson, welcome to the show. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for inviting me. It's great to have you, and it's always a pleasure to hear from people who are from around the globe. And we've had a few guests on the show from Australia, but not for some time now. So it'll be, I think, refreshing to get new fresh insights into how things are going for you and your business in Australia. Sure. Great. Now, before we get into all of that, Julie, would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself and your career journey leading up to this point?

Julie Watson: Yes, so I was doing bookkeeping. I sort of fell into bookkeeping through IT and had been doing it for about 10 years when they changed the legislation in Australia and you needed to become a registered BAS agent and have a qualification, a tertiary qualification. So I was CFO at the time and I went back and did an accounting diploma through TAFE here in Australia, got my accounting diploma, and then when I finished that, I wanted to resign from my job and start the business properly as a registered BAS agent. So I had been doing it part-time for many, many years, and the problem was when I did it part-time on my own, or when I had done it prior to working as a CFO, there were times where it would peak and trough. I wasn't coping with the workload around BAS time, and then it would get really quiet. I wasn't sure how to get new clients. So there was a lot I didn't know, but the technique I had was really good. So I found Pure Bookkeeping, that was 5 years ago, and I